Madness is a Sweet Escape
by DuchessofTheShiveringIsles
Summary: After an accident has finally marked her as a monster, Lily is placed in the Imperial Prison awaiting death at the turning of the era though the stars align and the time has come. During the escape attempt for the Emperor, she finds herslef given the responsibility of delivering the Amulet of Kings, but a strange door opens in Niben Bay and offers the chance for a new life.
1. The Beginning

**SO, this is my first attempt at trying to post a story here! This is my beginning chapter so I hope it doesn't get bashed too hard, but constructive criticism is allowed. It will help me out a lot! Thanks for those who give my story a chance, much love. P.S. The calendar and such, I saw this being used by AshleighAishwarya in her story Runaway With My Heart (another Elder Scrolls fan fiction.) I would appreciate if you checked that out! It was my whole inspiration for writing again.- Duchess**

 _Chapter_ _One_

 **Location: Imperial Jail  
** **27th of Last Seed**

The chill of cold stones sent a strong shiver throughout her body and it roused her from her slumber. With half opened eyes she, unwillingly, rose from her hard bed to see light pouring in through the tiny slit of a window. Memories rose to haunt her.

 _It had been an accident..._

Bile rose up within her mouth.

 _I hadn't meant to..._

Her stomach became uneasy, but she couldn't let what had happened upset her. This wasn't her fault, she had explained, and when asked upon whose fault it was her answer had made several people angry.

"Ooh, you've been talked about quite a bit, Nord" a mocking tone sounded throughout the air. Her eyes could barely even see across her bars into the other cell, but she managed to make out, what looked like, a Dark Elf.

"Excuse me?" Her body began to lean forward to hear the voice a bit better.

He grinned a bit, though she really couldn't tell. "The guards are quite talkative when they think everyone's asleep-" the other prisoner laughed "- look at you, so young, so pretty. I'm sure the guards will forget you're a monster"

She flinched.

"I'm not a... monster" she tried to defend, but her voice quivered in her throat.

Another laugh erupted from the being across the narrow hallway, "You don't sound so sure and from what I've heard you truly are a beast. You're going to die in here Nord."

New voices started to faintly echo into their prison cells.

"Here they come... for you! He he he he" The other prisoner mocked.

A familiar, almost painful, friend visited her rather quickly. **Fear.**

"My sons are dead, aren't they?"

The soft ' _chinks'_ and _'clanks'_ of armor were becoming quite apparent to her ears long before she ever saw these voices and a curiosity took hold of her, replacing that fear with its youth. Curiosity had never truly sat inside her or made her wonder more than it did now.

"We don't know for sure sire. The messenger had only said they'd been attacked besides my job now is to get you to safety" That voice sounded a little too familiar for her liking, but she did not think on that long. Her thoughts were focused on the man who worried for his sons. A guard had called him sire. Curiosity took hold once more, filling her and moving her as if it her body were its own. She moved a little further out from her bed to cautiously creep up so her eyes could peer through the bars. Not a lot could be seen in the damp prison but what the flickering torches would allow. The end of the stairwell could be made out quite clearly though and even some movement. Her eyes narrowed to peer farther. A body became apparent then another and another.

 _By the nine.._ She thought in her head as an elder, dressed in regal robes, was the last to make it down the stairs. It was the Emperor of Tamriel! Uriel Septim.. He seemed aged more than he had appeared, his shoulders looked almost.. drooped as if a heavy weight had been placed upon his shoulders, but it still did not stop the man from appearing mighty.

She had been so enraptured by the emperor that she did not notice the guards suddenly at her cell door.

"What's this prisoner doing here?" a female voice called out, the tone quite stern, "this cell was supposed to be off limits"

An urgency hung in the air, it had to have been urgent given the fact Uriel was here and not in the palace. She could tell the female guard was quite irritated. Even with the armor hiding most of her form, she seemed quite rigged, and soon the Nord's presence within the cell became nothing more than an inconvenience. "Stand over by the window Prisoner and you won't be hurt" a male guard told her, pointing his arm as the door to her cell was soon opened.

The entire situation seemed strange, yet as she began to connect pieces together, making a larger picture, the reasoning became clearer. The emperor was in danger, his sons had possibly been murdered and this was the final attempt to ensure the emperor would be alive, but why her cell? What was so important about her cell? There was nothing out of the ordinary here except a few old bones and of course her window. The disgruntling sound of a chaffing armor grew closer when the guards and their emperor was brought into her cell.

Uriel stepped forward rather quickly,"You, I've seen you."

The guard around him grew quite tense, hands near the hilt of their swords and the female, she assumed was the captain, was quick to try and act as a block between them.

"Let me see your face. What's your name?" He added.

"Lily, my name is Lily" she answered, finding it rather odd on how her face suddenly became such an importance. Did he not know? Surely he did. He was emperor, yet he seemed unafraid of her. It gave her a sense of small comfort that at least one being was seeing her for the human she was and not for the beast, even if it was a person as high as the emperor.

"Then the stars were right and I go to my grave"

Lily opened her mouth to speak, but the spine-chilling sound of stone scraping against stone shut her up rather quickly as it caught their sudden attention. Her soft brown eyes turned away from the emperor to look where the sound had come from and stopped to find a hidden passage that had been in her cell. It made sense now why this one was meant to be off limits, if only she had known, but it didn't matter now. The only thing that did was to leave here.

A Redguard stayed a little behind, his eyes meeting with hers before he spoke, "come along and don't get in our way, you'll be alright. He entered the hidden passage behind Uriel and the choice was left up to Lily to follow behind. It's not like the Redguard was really enforcing her cooperation A quick glance to her cell door told her that it wasn't an option anymore. The gate had been shut, locked back and if she didn't want to rot away in here, following behind them seemed like the better option. Slowly, she made her way toward the entrance of the hidden passage, the darkness very uninviting, but with a sigh Lily began her pilgrimage for the outside world.


	2. Bravil

**My FIRST review! Thank you so much BlackOpal218, I'm so happy that you're enjoying the story so far. I also want to thank Ray1, Gizzygirl12 and Maryloudd for deciding to stick around with a favourite and a follow.**

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 **Location: Bravil  
** **27th of Last Seed, 3E  
6:00 AM**

The small glowing dragon shaped Amulet sat in her white palm as she rested herself on an inn bed in Bravil. The thing was a curious piece of work. Lily had tried earlier on to put the damn thing around her neck as a test and like many legends stated, it wouldn't clasp on her neck. Only a Septim could wear the amulet. She reached over to set it on the dresser and there it mocked her worse than that Dark Elf had. Every time she stared at the thing, it drove her through the horrid last moment of Uriel Septim the seventh over again and she couldn't do anything! She had watched him die! She shared his last words, his last moments and he entrusted something so important to her.. yet, she couldn't do what he had asked. It had been two days since his death and the only thing she had accomplished was traveling from the Imperial city to Bravil. _What a great hero I am,_ she jeered at herself, _I'll never understand why he trusted me._ She stole a glance toward the little red dragon with its soft glow sitting upon the old wood of the nightstand and it saddened her greatly. _Yeah, what a great hero... what am I going to do?_ Slowly, Lily laid back against the mattress with a hefty sigh for only herself and her eyes slowly closed to attempt relaxation. Strangely enough she remembered her travels to here, along the way she visited many inns, shops and even a few of the Aedra wayshrines in hopes a blessing along the way to get where she was.

 _Do you have any blank journals?_ She had remembered asking a shopkeeper in the Imperial City before she had left for a town nearby. Her first day out of the jail had been one of frantic need, of course when a man, a very powerful man, gives a task before dying. It's best to do it so that he may rest in peace, but she hadn't even started. Instead, Lily spent her time as inns talking to many folks who she had drunkly told her tale of the assassination too. After she had gotten over her hangover, people had recommended she keep her thoughts in a journal instead of spewing them. At the time she had found it quite silly, but looking back on their advice, maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was time to start writing her story, hopefully then someone could happen to find it along a beaten path long after she was gone. The nord opened her large brown eyes to begin to look for her journal, which had been in her pack, but she still needed to sit up to do get it.

She groaned at the stiffness of her mattress when her back popped and crackled painfully upon her rising to a sitting position,  
"damn, my bed in the prison was much softer than this.." her voice muttered softly between tight lips. Next she swiveled her lower self around, feet touching the cold wooden floor and with a slight push, she was standing.

Lily could remember putting the blank book in a bag along with a quill and ink-pot for her journey, but where was her bag? A quick scan on the cabinets, dresser and small nightstand told her it wasn't sitting on a surface. Her eyes stole a glance over to the door to check and ensure it was fully shut, and with a quick jiggle of the handle that ensured her it was also locked. No one could have taken it from the door. She even checked under the bed after that to make sure it wasn't under there, and it wasn't

 _Could it be in the dresser?_ she thought after a good long minute passed and it took even longer for her to turn that thought into actions. Gently, her hand grasped the small handles on the dresser to pull it out, her arms making a quick jerk and even with the smallest movement, there was a soft shuffle inside. With a quick peek, her eyes saw soft leather but Lily had to quickly move back because something came out of the dresser, something small and purple.

"What the-!" Lily lunged back until she tripped over her bed, landing on the mattress because she was unsure of what had sprang up from the wooden cabinet. Her heart was in a flurry, pounding so hard in her chest she could feel it and swore someone could have heard it if another soul was up here, but no one was and it had honestly frightened her by suddenly having a visitor.

Softly fluttering its small elegant wings, a tiny purple butterfly began to circle down from its gained height and the innocent creature gently landed onto the knee of Lily's leg. The insect, with its elegant wings softly shimmering in the lantern light, seemed unreal, almost like it was imaginary, but the thing had the nord thinking. Her pack hadn't been placed in the drawer of the dresser, nor had she any butterflies in there either. As gently as she could manage, Lily scooped the little insect into her right hand while she rose again from the inn bed. Her curiosity began to bubble up again as its own being with each step leading to the half opened drawer. The butterfly was certainly a puzzling addition and Lily peered cautiously into the dresser drawer. Of course, there was her pack but nothing else seemed out of the ordinary. With her left hand, Lily grasped the pack from the drawer and opened it up to grab her journal. It was then, when her left hand grasped cooled bound leather, a difference was soon noted. The journal felt _smooth_ which was strange to her. When it had been bought the leather was rough. Her hand grasped the book tighter and began to pull it out of the pack with a cautious demeanor.

The book, once brown and tattered, now was a beautiful display of soft black leather embroidered with a silver lining and metal edges that had a moon engraved into their shiny surface. After a moment of quick thought, the journal was set down upon the flat surface of the dresser and its hard cover flipped open. Inside has crisp pages and fresh ink written by an elegant hand.

 _The door is what you seek_

Lily felt herself growing quite puzzled by that one sentence, what did that mean? The door is what you seek? Though she fully intended to find out, a feeling of dread swept over her at the thought of who could've put the book in her bag. She slipped the new book into her pack, making sure to grab the amulet of kings and shoving that in there as well before leaving her small inn bedroom to head out for the wilds of Cyrodiil.

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 **This chapter, I feel, isn't as great as I thought it should've been. I hope to get more feedback and this isn't the final version of this chapter, I'm quite sure that it will change over time so check back on this.- Duchess**


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